Texas S Ta R Chart For School Presentation

Texas S Ta R Chart For School Presentation

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Texas Long Range Plan for Technology ~Teaching and Learning~

Teaching & Learning focuses on the learning needs of students and the instructional needs of teachers in meeting the vision the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology.

                                              

Provide the learner with:

:  access to technology resources and various methods of collaboration and project based learning.

:  the opportunity to become an active participant in their education while connecting to real life issues in a technology safe environment.

Provide the teacher with

:  the training and technology to prepare a student to live, think, and communicate in the 21^st Century.

:   the resources needed to integrate technology seamlessly throughout the Core Curriculum.

Our campus STaR Chart data demonstrates progress in 4 out of 6 areas.  The data from the 2007-2008 Texas Campus Statewide Summary reflects 70% of campuses are Developing Tech while over 25% of campuses are at the Advanced or Target Tech level.  On a national level, progress had been ongoing – one indication of this are the NETSwS/NETSwS.

Trends in my district include allowing teachers a wide range of technology professional developments, more opportunities to team-teach across content areas.  The middle schools have gone one-to-one with PC tablets and the high schools have gone three-to-one with Macs.   I feel the trends that we are following may be more advanced than many districts in the state and nation, but current trends have an emphasis on a technology rich environment for the students.  Many trends are only distant visions due to funding – school districts must work with 20^th Century funds while the needs are 21^st Century.

To improve in this area, I would recommend teachers have lesson design time to collaborate with their departments, teams and Instructional Technology Specialist (if applicable) to brainstorm new and innovative ways to teach across content areas with technology integrated throughout.  School districts also should offer learning opportunities for teachers to develop web based lessons and the resources to share these lessons with colleagues. 

I also strongly believe that a school being open five days a week, six hours a day, and nine months of the year just doesn’t work for families in our country anymore. Schools should be open longer hours, after school, weekends, and throughout the summer.  I visualize enrichment opportunities, reading intervention classes and project based learning opportunities for older students. This would also provide additional earning potential for teachers. Students need additional learning opportunities to compete in an international economy. And the fact is that many students in other countries such as India and China are going to school 25% longer than our students here.  These are some of the future business colleagues of many of our students. American students need to be competitive in the hiring process and equal contributors to a productive work force.

Think you can't trust the President?? At least trust the kids!

I was greeted early yesterday morning by a local newspaper article noting that some folks (specifically, "conservatives,"  but it's hard to know who that refers to) are angry that President Obama plans to give a speech at a public school urging young people to stay in school and take advantage of the education being offered them. Throughout the day yesterday -- and this morning -- I encountered this "developing story" ... on CNN, in The New York Times, and elsewhere.  What are we to make of this? The Obama folks clearly made one mistake in the run-up to the event.   They posted lesson plans that teachers could use in preparation for and after listening to the President's speech (offered live in one school but available for broadcast in any school).   One part of that included a question to be posed to the students:  "What can you do to help the President?"    In context, the question was clearly about supporting the good of the nation, but I can (if I really stretch Peter Elbow's "methodological belief") see why those who do not agree with the "President's ideology" would be concerned.  And it seems the President's folks were listening and focused on making this a non-partisan event. That question in the lesson plan was changed to ask how a student could achieve his or her educational goals.

I am struck by the concern with the "President's ideology," because the complaint incorporates the assumption that ONLY the President has an ideology, that the one complaining is speaking the non-biased truth.   Of course, the President has views on how to deal with the issues of our time, as do we all.    And we don't all agree with each other.   But it seems we have lost even the notion that we share one common goal:  a desire to educate children to be good Americans (even when we are not in agreement about what that means.)  Each of us -- especially the duly elected President of the country -- deserves that benefit of the doubt no matter how hard we fight in the arena of ideas and policies.

We have apparently moved into an era when even the clear election winner, a father of two young daughters, will not be trusted to speak to school children.  Have we so little confidence in our children's ability to listen critically and form and frame their own minds that we fear the influence of Barack Obama?   If that's so, then I fear no education is possible, certainly not the real education that requires openness to people who don't look and think like we do.  

Children who would become democratic citizens need to experience the play of democratic functioning.  I remember well my 6th grade Catholic school playground days during the Nixon/Kennedy elections.   My teachers and most of my classmates were Kennedy supporters (the result of religioius "ideology"? )   My parents -- and I -- were Nixon supporters (the result of my business executive father's socio-economic status?)  I and the few other Nixon supports held our ground when everybody else challenged us;   for the most part, we enjoyed it.  Whether or not we can trust our President in this case (and I obviously think we can),  I am quite certain we can trust our children.   Bring the President into every classroom;  it will do us good.

Cross-posted from Social Issues (the blog of the John Dewey Society Commission on Social Issues)  http://deweycsi.blogspot.com